Training might be the first thing that comes to mind when contractors think about a user conference for construction estimating or construction operations software, but classes presented by the supplier are not the only opportunity to get more proficient and get more out of the technology.
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Any construction management software company can claim a ‘client-driven’ approach to developing new features. The real trick is getting beyond the marketing cliché and backing up that claim. B2W does this with a structured process for encouraging input from users, prioritizing it and taking action. The online B2W Community Portal is a valuable part of this process.
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“When the yellow iron runs, we make money” is a known adage in heavy civil construction, but complex equipment maintenance, uptime and utilization challenges are a constant threat to profitability. Three leading contractors will share strategies and technologies they have adopted to tackle these challenges in an upcoming webinar sponsored by B2W and ENR magazine on Tuesday, October 22 from 2:00-3:00 PM EST.
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Accurate job cost reporting is essential for successful financial management but, in my experience, many companies not using electronic field logs in construction are plagued by their inability to capture two essential data points from the field. Labor hours and equipment hours, key building block of what are typically the two highest job cost items, are frequently inaccurate. This is because many contractors still rely on paper for construction time tracking and to record equipment hours.
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Anytime, anywhere connectivity for mobile devices may seem like a given in modern society, but contractors know the reality. Wi-Fi or cellular connectivity is not always available where heavy civil construction takes place. Even when it is, it may not be the most efficient way for some companies to use essential construction management software in the field.
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The profit killer lurking for many contractors is unplanned downtime. This is the time, outside of scheduled maintenance, when breakdowns or emergency repairs knock a machine out of service. However, contractors with best-in-class maintenance processes supported by software like B2W Maintain can change the equation by taking unplanned downtime rates to five percent or lower.
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Once the estimating and bidding are completed, the daily logs for construction projects become cornerstones to effective management. Foremen and supervisors know timely, accurate data is vital, but let’s face it. There are more productive things they would rather do than record labor, productivity, materials and equipment utilization.
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Best-in-class heavy construction contractors accurately cost their equipment. Doing this requires two things: an efficient method for tracking equipment utilization time on the job and an accurate calculation of what it costs to operate that equipment. The B2W Software ONE Platform can help with both.
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Recent comments from equipment experts using B2W Maintain sum up a simple truth about fleet maintenance and management. Preventive maintenance is essential to keeping maintenance costs low and uptime high, and heavy construction contractors will struggle to sustain a strong PM program without specialized software like B2W Maintain.
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Timely, data-driven decision making is a key to successful heavy construction operations, and contractors can’t make good decisions without gauging actual performance in the field against the expectations established in the estimate. That comparison on a daily basis provides supervisors with the means to address job issues and make corrections days or even weeks before reports can be generated through their company’s accounting/job cost systems.
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Getting crews, equipment and materials to the right place at the right time isn’t easy in the ever-changing construction environment. Doing it effectively goes a long way towards keeping projects on schedule and under budget.
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Heavy construction employees tend to be competitive by nature, and a growing number of managers are using performance data to turn that trait into performance improvements. Relying on tools like B2W Track and B2W Inform, allows them to capture data electronically and use it to populate timely reports and dashboards, which are easy to produce […]
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Implementing a software solution for field tracking and analysis can help construction contractors: Log, track and differentiate all work performed by a crew on a single field log, Keep costs and resource utilization separate for fixed price contract work and T&M work and add T&M work to a fixed-price job to handle additions to work scope and track those items separately from original scope of the contract.
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M&M Excavating used to refer to it as a “dreaded, day-long Monday ritual”, and the experience is all too familiar at heavy civil construction operations of all sizes and specialties. Two or three employees at that company used to spend most of the day pouring over job reports and time cards for work performed at each […]
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“We need technology to attract the younger, tech-savvy employees to grow the workforce industry-wide,” the CFO at M&M Excavating in northern Michigan says.
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In addition to personnel, equipment is essential to heavy civil construction operations. Keeping a fleet on the job and in safe, working order is a challenge with considerable financial risks and rewards. Add maintenance and repair costs to the impact that out-of-commission equipment has on productivity, and the bottom line can suffer significantly. The logical […]
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B2W Software clients review their experiences implementing our construction software, optimizing it and getting buy-in from their teams in the field.
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Any computer user who has ever placed a call to a support hotline knows the difference between a quality support experience and, well, the opposite. But what does quality support really mean? Let’s start by talking about what it isn’t. How many of us have… called a support line, only to be greeted by an […]
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While similarities exist between vertical and horizontal construction projects, there are key differences that alter software requirements.
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